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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954500">and miles to go before I sleep</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatertwitch/pseuds/tatertwitch'>tatertwitch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>anti-chantry, cute walks in the forest, except it's full of angst and the urge to run away, lavellan - Freeform, self doubt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 05:41:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatertwitch/pseuds/tatertwitch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan finds herself unable to sleep shortly after joining the Inquisition. The woods around Haven offer solace and help her come to a decision.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>and miles to go before I sleep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on a passage from Robert Frost's 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening':<br/>"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,<br/>But I have promises to keep,<br/>And miles to go before I sleep,<br/>And miles to go before I sleep."</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She still wasn’t used to sleeping in a bed this large, all on her own.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Moonlight filtered through the cracks in the shutters, dancing along the floor of the small, one-room house she’d been allocated. Outside, she could hear the soft murmuring of voices and the tell-tale clank of armor as the last of the Inquisition’s soldiers wandered to their tents to turn in for the night. She turned over in her bed, staring at the ceiling as she yanked the blankets up to her chin.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>The new Inquisition, </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thought morosely. She hated what that name implied. Sure, the Chantry had officially denounced them as a group of upstarts and heretics, but she was still, as of two days ago, a member of an organisation led by the Left and Right Hands of the Divine, commanded by an ex-templar, and run out of a Chantry building. There were still Mothers and Sisters milling about the village, reciting verses from the Chant at every opportunity.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And that blasted </span>
  <em>
    <span>title </span>
  </em>
  <span>they’d given her. “The Herald of Andraste”. It made bile burn thick and hot up the back of her throat. It was a curse to be crowned the Herald of a faith that had been advocating the slaughter of her people for centuries. She hated to think how her clan would react to the news, and Josephine’s insistence that they would be understanding was … unhelpful, to say the very least.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You move in different circles now,” and wasn’t that the truth? She’d never been so far from home, surrounded by people who would despise her if it weren’t for a mark on her hand that she never even asked for.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She brought said hand up to her face, watching as the mark flickered a sickly green on her palm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Sleep didn’t come easy to her that night. She tossed and turned for hours, drifting in and out of consciousness, plagued by vague visions of her clanmates’ faces, sneering and judgemental. Sometime after midnight, she decided she’d had enough.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Normally, she could dress herself in the dark with no problems at all, intimately familiar with the leather and chainmail she wore while hunting with her clan. Now, her hands fumbled as she strapped herself into the new armor Harritt had provided her. She’d told him it was perfect - sturdy and warm - but it wasn’t completely true. The breastplate dug into her ribs if she bent the wrong way, the coat was slightly too big on her, and the bloody </span>
  <em>
    <span>shoes </span>
  </em>
  <span>he insisted she wear to prevent her toes falling off from frostbite were clunky and uncomfortable.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She grumbled as she remembered that Solas could get away with wearing footwraps without anyone complaining. Still. At least she would be warm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She strapped her bow and quiver to her back, shoved a knife in her belt, and shouldered her pack before stepping out into the cold night.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>
  <span>The woods around Haven were beautiful at night, shrouded in stillness and a silence broken only by the soft crunch of her boots in the snow and the occasional hoot of an owl or scurrying of a nug. This far from the village, surrounded by tall trees, she could </span>
  <em>
    <span>almost </span>
  </em>
  <span>pretend that she was back home, patrolling the outskirts of her clan’s camp to watch for errant bandits or templars. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Almost</span>
  </em>
  <span>. It never snowed like this in the Free Marches, and she wouldn’t have to wear these damned shoes that made so much noise as she walked through the snow. It was scaring off any wildlife she might’ve hunted - not that she </span>
  <em>
    <span>needed</span>
  </em>
  <span> to hunt anymore. All her meals were provided by a servant who brought them straight to her little house. Beyond that, she had no idea where her food came from.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Still, she reasoned, it couldn’t have hurt to grab some extra meat and leather to feed and armor the Inquisition’s growing forces.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The wind picked up as she started to clamber up a rocky incline a fair ways into the woods, whipping her hair into her face and sending a shiver down her spine. The cold had started to seep through her thick coat and gloves and her teeth chattered slightly. For a moment, she considered turning around and walking back to the village, but she couldn’t stomach the thought of returning just yet. The woods were lovely in their own stark, cold way; and the solitude was a balm on her frayed soul. She would wander a little while longer.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She kept walking up the slope until the ground evened out once again, and all she could see in front of her were snow-tipped trees. Looking over her shoulder, she had a clear view of the woods she’d walked through, all the way to the gates of Haven and the tall roof of its Chantry. All its inhabitants were likely asleep, save the few guards she’d snuck past on her way out.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It all looked so small. So insignificant.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She was struck by the realisation that she was further from the village than she had been since Cassandra threw her in chains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She could keep going. She could </span>
  <em>
    <span>run. </span>
  </em>
  <span>They wouldn’t realise she was gone until morning, and by then they would have no hope of catching up to her. She could disappear into the woods, trekking north until she hit Orzammar before continuing eastward to one of the towns dotting Ferelden’s coastline, where she could board a ship back to the Free Marches. Back </span>
  <em>
    <span>home</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mark flickered in her palm, visible even through her leather glove. It set her nerves alight, shooting a prickling sensation up her left arm.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought, looking up at where the Breach split open the sky. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Damn it.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She told Cassandra she’d do whatever was necessary to help close the blasted thing. She’d made a promise. The Breach threatened more than the Inquisition, more than just the tiny village at the base of a mountain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sighed heavily, taking one last longing look at the woods that stretched out for miles ahead of her, beautiful and peaceful, before turning and beginning the long walk back to Haven.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
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